Entrepreneur’s Knowledge, Firm Survival, and the Normalized Burn Rate

Working Papers

We study the association of spending per employee with startup firm survival. Our theory model posits that entrepreneur’s knowledge defines the complex decision process of combining human and non-human inputs to increase firm value. Read More

Big Pushes, Little Hollywoods: Local Economic Development Effects of Film Tax Credit Lotteries

Working Papers

The extent to which local incentive policies (such as subsidies and tax credits) are effective at spurring new centers of innovation, and whether these incentives induce overall productivity growth or just a shift of production from one region to another, is the subject of this proposal.Read More

Firm Responsiveness to Location Subsidies: Regression Discontinuity Estimates from a Tax Credit Formula

Working Papers

In 2011, California Governor Jerry Brown recognized several of the state’s existing firm incentive policies aimed at catalyzing innovative activity in the state, to be ineffectual, citing poor incentive design.Read More

The Economics of Patient-Centered Care

Published Research

The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) is a widely-implemented model for improving primary care, emphasizing care coordination, information technology, and process improvements. However, its treatment as an undifferentiated intervention obscures meaningful variation in implementation. Read More

Thriving Innovation Amidst Manufacturing Decline: The Detroit Auto Cluster and the Resilience of Local Knowledge Production

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Analyzing the comprehensive 35-year patent data set associated with the Detroit auto cluster we confirm that innovation in clusters can increase in spite of a long-term decline in manufacturing activity. The “stickiness” of local knowledge is sustained by: (i) increasing technological specialization at the local level and (ii) growing connectedness to global centers of excellence.Read More

Analyzing Knowledge Communities Using Foreground and Background Clusters

Published Research

Insight into the growth (or shrinkage) of “knowledge communities” of authors that build on each other’s work can be gained by studying the evolution over time of clusters of documents. We cluster documents based on the documents they cite in common using the Streemer clustering method, which finds cohesive foreground clusters (the knowledge communities) embedded in a diffuse background.Read More

Positioning knowledge: schools of thought and new knowledge creation

Published Research

Cohesive intellectual communities called “schools of thought” can provide powerful benefits to those developing new knowledge, but can also constrain them. We examine how developers of new knowledge position themselves within and between schools of thought, and how this affects their impact.Read More

Innovating knowledge communities – An analysis of group collaboration and competition in science and technology

Published Research

A useful level of analysis for the study of innovation may be what we call “knowledge communities” — intellectually cohesive, organic inter-organizational forms. Formal organizations like firms are excellent at promoting cooperation, but knowledge communities are superior at fostering collaboration — the most important process in innovation.Read More